Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Since Christmas was already five days ago, I figured I should probably post something about our Christmas events...or non-events really. Since I had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, this year was a little less festive than in the past. I got off work on Christmas morning at 5 a.m. and drove straight to Beth's parents house. I got to sleep around 6 a.m. and then Beth woke me up around 9 so we could have breakfast and start opening presents. This is my third Christmas in a row to spend with Beth's family(since all of my family lives overseas) and it's always a great time.

The biggest surprise came when I opened Stacy's present for Beth and I. I literally almost fell on the floor. Below is a pic of the moment:

What I'm holding in my hand are tickets to the BCS National Championship game next week and also an itinerary with our flight information to Miami. It was probably the biggest shock I've ever gotten while opening Christmas presents. And Beth told me it was all Stacy's idea to do this for us. It's just a really great gift and I couldn't be more excited to watch the Sooners next week in Miami. Beth booked us a hotel on the beach and I got our rental car so now we're all set.

My main present for Beth was our trip to New York City last week and also a little shopping that we did while we were there. Her two gifts to me were awesome. She got my college diploma framed which I had been wanting to do for five years now but just never did. She also got me Season Four of The Office. We are absolutely addicted to that show. If you haven't ever watched, I definitely recommend it. Hilarious. Below are a few pics from Christmas Day.

Friday, December 26, 2008

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since we last posted. I guess we've been kind of busy. I'll try to give a brief update of what's been going on. Last Wednesday I flew up to Tulsa for a job interview with my company. I've been looking to get into another position for a little while and a good opportunity came up that I went ahead and applied for. The upside is, it's a really good position in a good group with a lot of potential for the future. The downside is, we'd have to move to Tulsa for the job. Being from that area, I at least have a small idea of what moving to Tulsa would be like(although I haven't spent time in Tulsa in over 5 years). On the other hand, Beth doesn't know anything about Tulsa and I think is somewhat nervous about the possibility of us packing up and moving. My little brother and sister go to school at the University of Tulsa and Beth's sister Stacy lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas so we would be close to family and also have friends in the Tulsa area. Besides that, it's a cheap, hour-long flight from Tulsa to Houston so seeing Beth's parents wouldn't be a problem at all. I should know something in the near future and will keep everyone posted.

I got back from Tulsa on Thursday evening and Friday we packed up and flew to New York City. I surprised Beth with a trip for the holidays and we had a great time. Because of the huge snowstorm that rolled through the Northeast, our flight was about three hours behind schedule. It's hard to complain though because a lot of flights were flat out cancelled. We got to New York about 1:15 a.m. and got to our hotel around 1:45. After checking in, we went to bed to get ready for a busy day ahead. On Saturday we just went out with no real agenda. We took the Subway up to Fifth Avenue, did some shopping(and a little more shopping), went to Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and walked past the United Nations. It was a lot of fun to see things that we've only seen on tv or heard about.

Saturday night we had reservations at Bar Americain which is one of Bobby Flay's two restaurants in NYC. He's one of our favorite Food Network chefs and although we had to take out a small loan to pay for dinner, the food and atmosphere were great.

On Sunday morning we got up and went straight to Times Square to get in line at the TKTS booth where you get half-priced tickets for that day's Broadway shows. We were lucky that we only had to wait in line for about an hour and ended up getting tickets for our first choice, Spring Awakening. After getting tickets, we walked around a little bit before going to the show. The show, although not completely what we expected, was great. The music was really good and all of the actors did a great job.

After the show we did a little more sightseeing before going to Carmine's for dinner. Carmine's had been recommended to us by a few different people and although the wait was forever long, I'm glad we went. Carmine's is a family style Italian restaurant that has been in New York for a really long time. Below is a picture of our Calamari appetizer. Let's just say that Beth and I didn't eat it all.

On Monday we got up and headed straight to the Empire State Building. We were glad we got up and did that because we only had about an hour total wait to get to the top. When we got done the wait was 3+ hours. After that, we went to Central Park, went down to Wall Street(and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge), walked through Greenwich Village, and ended the night in Soho at a well-known pizza place called Lombardi's for dinner.

Overall, we had a great trip and I'm glad we were able to make it to New York during Christmas. Next time we go maybe it'll be in the summertime when the weather is a little different.

Below are a few other random pics from NYC:

Pics of Ground Zero from our hotel room:

Below is a picture of the front of our hotel on September 11, 2001. It's crazy to think that seven years ago, chaos engulfed the area of NYC that we just got back from. If you didn't see Ground Zero across the steet, you would never know that anything ever happened.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Little did I know, next week is going to be pretty exciting! I would have been excited just about going on Christmas Break at the end of the week, but I got a surprise on Thursday night. We went out to dinner with another couple that we are friends with, and when we got home Tony told me he had an early Christmas present for me because it was something I was going to need before then. He handed me a little present all wrapped up and made me unwrap it with my eyes closed. I opened my eyes and saw a Top 10 New York City travel book. The first thing out of my mouth is "Why do I need this?" all confused. Tonys says because we are going there next Friday!!! I was so surprised and excited! We've never been to New York and to go at Christmas is going to be so much fun. Rockefeller tree, shop windows, ice skating, hot chocolate, all that good Christmas stuff!

I guess Tony has been planning this since October! I had no clue, but the rest of my family knew. They were dying laughing when I told them because they had all been keeping the secret for months. Tony's good at surprises, and it's actually really a thoughtful reason why he decided to have us go somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He's going to have to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and worked all the days around Thanksgiving too. So he wanted us to do something special since we weren't really going to have normal holidays together.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Beth and I lost our passports. Don't ask me how, we just did. We've looked everywhere for them and they are nowhere to be found. We've retraced our steps to the point of being in Los Angeles, coming through customs(which you obviously can't do without passports). Our flight from Hong Kong was really late arriving and when we were rushing to get from the international terminal to the Continental ticket counter, I know that we still had them because we used them to check-in for our flight from LA to Houston. From that point on, it's a mystery.

Beth and I have been to 8 countries together and never had a problem, but for some reason the trip back from our honeymoon threw us for a loop. There is good news in all of this though. Beth needs a new passport with her new last name and I need a new passport because mine is about to expire. The problem is, now we have to go to the post office and deal with that disaster instead of being able to do it all from home if we still had our passports. Oh well. Who knows, maybe our passports will just appear one day.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Stacy played at Q-school the last 5 days to play for a spot on the LPGA Tour next year. Well, she pretty much played awesome every day and finished FIRST!! All she needed to do was place in the Top 20 to make it on tour for next year, but she did way better than that! It's funny because before Stacy left, we were all asking her if she was ready and she said "Yeah, I feel like I can win." Little did we know that's just how she was going to finish. She's worked so hard and this win and place on the tour is well deserved. We can't wait to see what she accomplishes on tour now!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Beth and I have been nervously checking Stacy's scores everyday for the past four days. Beth has even gotten her kids at school interested in how Stacy is doing. Today we have been glued to our computers waiting for the score updates as soon as they come. It's kind of like watching water boil. I think it moves slower when you watch it. Anyway, here's a pic of Beth watching Stacy on the computer. Keep in mind that she's not watching video of Stacy, she's watching a scoreboard with Stacy's name on it that changes every three to four minutes. But I can't make fun of her because I'm doing the same thing, save for the few seconds I took to take this picture.

Augusta

About Tony and Beth

Beth grew up in The Woodlands, Texas just north of Houston. Tony grew up in Bartlesville, OK. They met in 2005 when Beth started working with Tony in The Woodlands. On July 3, 2007, they got engaged and on July 26, 2008 they were married in The Woodlands. Tony and Beth welcomed their first child, Cole Edward, on March 18th, 2011. Tony and Beth love to travel and have been all over the world together to places like Australia, London, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Venice, Rome, Florence, Dubai, Oman, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Besides traveling, Tony and Beth enjoy running and completed their first marathon in Monterey, CA in April 2010.